Cuenca, Ecuador to Lima, Peru

We stayed a couple days in the little town of Cuenca and explored a couple neighboring towns. The highlight of this area was again the dress of the locals. Instead of felt hats like in Quito, all the ladies wore straw hats, and they also wore brightly colored skirts.

From Cuenca we had four days of extreme travel to get to Cusco, Peru. We started our travels on Wednesday the 27th by taking a bus to Loja and then another bus to the border town. When we got to the border, we noticed a drastic difference in temperature. In the mountains it was cool, but the border was incredibly hot and humid. We had to spend the night here, and we woke up early on Thursday to cross the border, which was definitely our easiest crossing yet. No one trying to haggle us, trying to get us to change money or be a guide or get money from us. From here we took a taxi to Sullana, as there wore no buses. The taxi was a colectivo, meaning it picked up other people as well. There was a man and his teenage son in the front passenger seat, Nate and I wore in the back with a lady and her daughter, and in the hatchback was an older lady and her two kids with our luggage. Definitely crammed full! And the whole time people are driving fast and swerving around other cars.

Pigs!

When we finally got to the bus terminal in Sullana, the taxi driver attempted to charge us double what he originally quoted. He said he meant $15 per person not $15 each; luckily we knew enough Spanish to call him out on the scam. From here we had to walk around for about an hour to find an ATM to get some soles in order to pay for the bus to Piura. The highlight of this bus trip was that in front of the bus were a couple bags of pigs! I’ve never seen anything like it. The negative part was that Nate’s backpack got placed in dead fish slime, and proceeded to smell horrible for the next few days. ick!

When we got to Piura, we decided to walk the few blocks to the Itsa bus terminal. Unfortunately, our map must be outdated because we walked for about 30 minutes with our heavy packs in the heat and didn’t come upon the place. We decided to catch a tuk tuk, which turned out to cost only 3 soles, a little over a dollar. Definitely worth the expense in that heat! After buying our tickets for the 530 pm bus and storing our luggage we decided to head to the mall and get out of the heat. In the food court I had to pull up a chair to the one tiny fan to try to cool off, I felt like I was overheating so badly I was almost panicky. We spent the afternoon watching a crappy movie (My Boyfriend’s a Vampire), but we got to enjoy the air conditioning, which was amazing. Since we still had a little time to kill after this, we walked around the outdoor market of Piura. At 530 Thursday we boarded the bus, and we got into Lima at 10 am the next day – that’s 16 and a half hours on a bus! The seats were luxurious and comfortable though, like a lazy boy that leaned back 160˚. They also played movies, but in Spanish, and they did serve us some food. I spent most of the time reading and trying to sleep.

Nate on travel day, with his 2 hats

In Lima on Friday we had two hours to kill before the longest bus trip of my life – 25 hours! We again had luxurious seats, and they were able to have English sub titles on the movie which helped. We made a couple pit stops for horrible food. The last half of the trip was winding through the Andes mountains, it was nauseating! Two little boys on the bus ended up throwing up all over the floor, but luckily it didn’t smell at all. After getting up to go to the bathroom at one point, I felt so insanely nauseous that I could barely hear Nate talk and I felt like the blood had drained form my face. I fell asleep clutching a plastic baggie that the steward had previously handed out. Also, like much of South America, the bathrooms were bring your own toilet paper. Most restrooms require you to pay and then the attendant will hand you some toilet paper as you’re walking in. Free restrooms, however, are not stocked. Luckily we learned this early on so I was usually lugging toilet paper around with us.

Nate the dog whisperer

Finally, at around 1 pm on Saturday, we arrived in Cusco! We took a cab to our hostel (after making a quick trip back to the bus because I left my glasses on board –oops). Our hostel was super clean, in a school, and run by extremely friendly nuns. I immediately took a nice, long, hot shower. It was amazing, and after almost four whole days of straight traveling, definitely necessary!